Harm with irrational motives yields lower agency attribution than harm with rational motives.

Evidence

Specifically, we would expect perceivers to attribute less agency to targets who have less rational motivations for causing harm (e.g., causing harm for the fun of it) compared to agents with more rational motivations (e.g., causing harm for more utilitarian reasons). — Mansur Khamitov, Jeff D. Rotman, and Jared Piazza, Perceiving the Agency of Harmful Agents, 146

Categorization

• QUESTION: Is this mechanism test the reader cares about — does motive rationality actually shift perceived agency?
• XREF: connects to: Recategorizing a target only along one agency dimension shifts both responsibility and sensitivity judgments — Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner, Moral Typecasting: Divergent…, 43